The Omnivore's Dilemma - Michael Pollan [98]
Grass farming done well depends almost entirely on a wealth of nuanced local knowledge at a time when most of the rest of agriculture has come to rely on precisely the opposite: on the off-farm brain, and the one-size-fits-all universal intelligence represented by agrochemicals and machines. Very much on his own in a very particular place, the grass farmer must continually juggle the various elements of his farm in space as well as time, relying on his powers of observation and organization to arrange the appointed daily meeting of animal and grass in such a way as to ensure maximum benefit for both.
So is this sort of low-tech pastoralism simply a throwback to preindustrial agriculture? Salatin adamantly begged to differ: “It might not look that way, but this is all information-age stuff we’re doing here. Polyface Farm is a postindustrial enterprise. You’ll see.”
2. MONDAY EVENING
As I neared the blessed, longed-for end of my first day as a Polyface farmhand, I must say I didn’t feel at all the way I normally do after a day spent laboring in the information economy. And there was still one more daunting chore before dinner: moving the cows, an operation that, Joel wanted me to understand, is a whole lot easier than it sounds. I certainly hoped so. Throwing and stacking fifty-pound bales of hay all afternoon had left me bone tired, sore, and itchy all over from pricks of the chaff, so I was mightily relieved when Joel proposed we ride the four-wheeler to the upper pasture where the cows had spent their day. (It’s axiomatic that the more weary you feel the more kindly you look on fossil fuel.) We stopped by the toolshed for a freshly charged car battery to power the electrified paddock fence, and sped up the rutted dirt road, Joel behind the wheel, me hanging on behind him, trying to keep my rear end planted on the little wooden deck he’d rigged up for hauling stuff around the farm.
“My neighbors think I’m insane, moving my cows as often as I do. That’s because when most people hear the words ‘moving the cattle’ they picture a long miserable day, featuring a couple of pickup trucks, a bunch of barking dogs, several cans of Skoal, and a whole lot of hollering,” Joel said, hollering himself to be heard over the ATV’s engine. “But honestly, it’s not like that at all.”
Like most grass farmers who practice rotational grazing, Joel moves his cattle onto fresh grass every day. The basic principle is “mob and move,” he explained, as we bumped to a halt at the gate to the upper pasture. Eighty or so cattle were milling or lying around what looked like relatively tight quarters in a fenced-off section of a much larger pasture that sloped to the south.
“What we’re trying to do here is mimic on a domestic scale what herbivore populations do all over the world. Whether it is wildebeests on the Serengeti, caribou in Alaska, or bison on the American plains, multistomached herds are always moving onto fresh ground, following the cycles of the grass. Predators forced the buffalo to move frequently, and stay mobbed-up together for safety.”
These intense but brief stays completely change the animals’ interaction with the grass and the soil. They eat down just about everything in the paddock, and then they move on, giving the grasses a chance to recover. Native grasses evolved to thrive under precisely such grazing patterns; indeed, they depend on them for their reproductive success. Not only do ruminants spread and fertilize seed with their manure, but their hoofprints create shady little